Posted
by
samzenpuson Friday October 01, 2010 @02:52PM
from the read-all-about-it dept.

eldavojohn writes "Linux Kernel Development Third Edition by Robert Love is the perfect book for the beginning or intermediate Linux kernel hacker. It provided me an excellent bridge between the high level introduction I had in college (from Operating Systems Concepts) and the actual kernel code. The best part about this book is that the chapters are — like the kernel — modular, and allow the reader to dig down in a particular part if they have a specific interest. This, in conjunction with Love's indications of which files and code snippets contain the logic, gave me confidence to clone the kernel, make tiny adjustments, compile and run. At four hundred pages, the book is a long read, but for kernel newbies like me it's a better alternative to jumping into the millions of lines of code. While you might find this information in pieces floating around online, this book balances clarity with brevity in an exceptional manner. It should also be noted that this book defaults to the x86 architecture when explaining architecture-sensitive parts of the kernel (with 64-bit differences occasionally outlined)." Keep reading for the rest of eldavojohn's review.